Leather Crafting

More from: leather

Leather repair: replaced worn strap on hammer holster. Used copper rivets this time instead of the assembly line crimp rivets it was made with. Shaped it a bit to reduce future problems – when you want to put your hammer back on your belt, you don’t want to fight to get it back in there – aim and drop. Properly shaped leather does that. I can make work belts also, with cinches rather than buckles if so requested.

If you have leather that needs to be repaired this is the time to get it to me.

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Abundant Life Church is starting a new thing called Groups which will each be on a secular topic of interest to those who participate, and will meet in lieu of the traditional Wednesday evening Bible Study service. (Typical groups last time were Finances, Cropping for Christ, & Shooting and Firearm Safety. My church is kinda crazy like that) The point is to involve the wider community, not just church members.There will still be a small group meeting Wednesday evenings at ALC for those who don’t have an interest in anything.

Anyway, due to some temporary lapse in sanity, ALC has actually approved yours truly to sponsor one of those groups. I submitted our description as follows. I’ll post start details & dates for any interested once I have them. This is for makers and minions.

Made in the Image of God, we are Creators! For people who make things out of micro controllers, electronics, leather, wood, and steel. That’s not a junk TV, it’s a parts bonanza!

A Maker’s Space, we gather to share and discuss technology ideas, cool things to make, and learn and see what each other has been building. In the event of fire or explosion the church has insurance.

My initial thoughts are interesting projects such as wireless electronic signs, quadrocopters, furnace controls, and performance art lighting, using TI Launchpads, Arduino, and Raspberry Pi micro controllers, but anything goes. Just have to see what awesome ideas people have when they come.

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Christmas crafting: the season is upon us, and that means hand crafted belts, smart phone cases, and key fobs from API Leathercrafting. We already have several orders, this one for four smart phone cases and three key fobs. To get your handcrafted leather gifts this year, go to http://apileathercrafting.us/. We price aggressively: hand crafted goods made or real leather, not fake leatherette or plastics, for about the same price you would pay at Wal-Mart for cheap foreign goods.

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Throughout the years I have engaged in many forms of crafting. The mark of the craftsman is his or her personal drive for excellence. In the pursuit of excellence we often develop new, artistic, or innovative output, often using unconventional materials.

When I created wainscot for my kitchen, I found it better to use the cheapest, #3 pine lumber because it was full of beautiful, large, knots and knot holes. Clear lumber would have been perfect in and of itself, but average at best in my kitchen. To get a truly beautiful wall I used the least desired lumber.

When I create leather goods, I have found the best leather is very nice to work: mostly clean, no cuts, no bug bites, no holes. And many people just want a plain belt with nothing unusual, which is fine: for them I will simply cut a quick belt from a perfect hide, punch it, dye it, and ship it to them. But when I make my best items, I make them from leather which has been tried: it has wrinkles and cuts and sometimes holes. The thickness may vary. The dye soaks in in mysterious patterns of light and dark. I look at it carefully; I see how to cut my pattern around the blemishes, or sometimes to highlight them; I massage the dye into the leather, teasing the patterns and blemishes so that they reveal their secrets and merge into a unique and beautiful work.

In short, the leather goods that I get from a less perfect hide are by far more wonderful than anything made from a premier hide. I call these traits, these unique differences in each piece of material, the material’s Character.

People also have blemishes. They have scars and maybe some wounds that never quite healed. They have secrets that they do not want to remember. They have lived and suffered and are forever different from every other person because of it. And this is part of what makes their character: it is what makes each one of us unique.

Like materials, people with blemishes are thrown away, de-valued, and marginalized by society. They are excluded from mainstream communion: thrown into the discount bin: a broken and unwanted object. And in the hands of the Supreme Craftsman they are crafted into a work of art far more wondrous and beautiful than anything average made from people who have never errored, never suffered, never hurt.

The mark of a Craftsman is not what he or she can do with the perfect: it is what he or she can do with the distressed. God never wastes a hurt: the experience will come in handy later.